The present invention relates generally to a program testing and debugging support system. More specifically, the present invention is directed to a method and an apparatus for monitoring, investigating an execution path and an execution condition of the program, and for retrieving an execution history after the program is executed.
In a conventional method as described in, for instance, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. JP-A-63-100543, when an error occurs during an execution of a program, a source program portion of a module where the error occurred (either a user function or a subroutine) is displayed an a statement causing the error can be discriminated thereby.
Also, as described in "LISP/VM Programming Environment" of Report on SIGSYM 31 (March, 1985), Information processing Society of Japan, another method is described wherein the execution position of the source program is displayed on the screen so as to be discriminated in statement units. An execution sequence of a program is thus monitored statement-by-statement. On operator can monitor the sequence of execution of the program in such a manner that an executed position in the source program displayed on the display screen is shown distinctively from the other positions.
Lastly, "Programming Environment Based on Program Constitution Diagram" by Ueda, et al., Information Processing Society of Japan, 37th (September 1988) describes a program debugging support system.